Page 110 of Their Mate

“North ridge collapsing—”“South beach overrun—”“We can’t hold?—”

And through it all, Dane’s voice, smooth and steady, a serpent coiled in the middle of ruin. “Hold your lines. Detonate on my mark. Remember your training. Remember who you are.”

As if training meant a damn thing against this.

I stood behind him, watching the island tear itself apart in pixels and sound. Watching men scream as their signals cut out.Watching yellow eyes bloom in squads that had been human only minutes ago.

The plan wasn’t working.

Hell, there had never been a plan. Just Dane’s obsession with control. He thought cliffs and charges and rifles could break the tide of lycans. He thought sacrificing one woman and a handful of wolves would buy humanity another century, but the tide didn’t break. Itturned.

And the Watch—the men and women I’d trained and bled beside—were going to be devoured.

I’d known this was coming. I’d seen it in every order Dane had barked since Sera had arrived. The way he’d looked at her, not as a soldier, not even as a human, but as a problem to be solved. The malicious way he’d smiled when he thought no one was watching.

“You see?” Dane’s hand curled in a tight fist behind his back, knuckles white. “They’ll drown each other. Wolves, lycans, the British. You’ll see, we’ll be the only ones left standing. The Watch will endure.”

I stepped closer. My fingers brushed the inside pocket of my coat. The weight of the tranquilizer pistol was reassuring, cold and ready. I’d picked it up on a whim after Dane had insisted on being in the room with Sera all alone.

I didn’t trust him.

My throat burned. I remembered Sera’s face when she’d first come into my squad, all young bravery and anger, her eyes hollow from grief. I’d been the one to shape her into a weapon.I’d promised her once—quietly, in the barracks where no one else could hear—that I’d always have her back.

I didn’t break my promises.

Dane hadn’t heard the screaming on the comms the way I had. He didn’t hear the despair. He only heard opportunity.

Enough was enough.

I drew the pistol out of my pocket. Thethwipof the dart cutting the air was barely louder than the static. Dane blinked once, turning toward me, disbelief flashing across his face. “Elias—what the?—”

The tranq dart bit deep into his neck. Almost immediately, his words slurred. He staggered, catching the desk for balance.

I stepped in close, caught him as he sagged. “Your plan failed, Dane.” My voice was flat, stripped of everything but the truth. “I’m taking command.”

His eyes rolled back. His body went slack. I let him drop.

For a heartbeat, the room was silent except for the crackle of radios and the muffled thunder of battle outside. The other Watch officers stared, pale and wide-eyed.

I holstered the pistol and barked out an order, authority snapping into place like a blade into a sheath. “I’m in command. Get every able body to the front line. We fight or we’re finished.”

No one argued. Men just moved.

I turned for the door, grabbed my rifle, and went into battle with my soldiers.

The cliffs were worse up close. Smoke rolled across the ledges, acrid and choking. The air was thick with gunpowder and blood. Lycans sprawled in heaps, some still twitching, their yellow eyes fading.

I should have been afraid. The wolf inside me, the secret I’d carried all my life, howled at the sight, at the smell of it, but fear didn’t matter now.

Victory did.

I moved through the chaos, my rifle barking with every shot, the recoil snapping back into my shoulder. Men from the Watch looked at me once and then kept moving.

I saw them then.

Sera, alive but battered, her blade red to the hilt. Logan, blood slick on his chest, his eyes bright. Aidan limping, fur matted, still tearing through anything that came close. Declan grinning like a lunatic through his own blood. Edward, ever the soldier, every strike methodical and true. Jamie was bloody and battered, but still moving faster than sense allowed.

They were still alive.